Register for TMA 458 in the Fall

And a New Earth: Reprise by hitRECord

Media & Empathy

First, here's this to bridge our conversations from media's relationship with society & community to our current discussions of empathy and belief.

Here's another intersection of media and empathy.

And here's a taste of things to come.

Dana Atchley, "Next Exit"

Fireside Chat

Here is a list of reminders related to your upcoming Fireside Chat. Remember media is due to Josh by Thursday at midnight. The performance will be at 6:30pm (new, earlier time) on Thursday Apr. 11th in the Nelke.

• Your media should be thoughtfully selected/created and function to communicate your story and theme. This is not the time to sample crappy stock photos from Google to make a poor power point presentation to accompany your chat. You may use pre-existing images/text/video/audio, but your use of them has to be purposeful and artful.
• You may use images OR video OR audio OR props OR costumes OR whatever media (or combination of multiple media) you think will best serve your chat. It doesn't matter to me, as long as it exemplifies your effort and creativity.
• Your performance should be (more or less) scripted and performed BUT NOT wholly pre-recorded. Part of this experience is for you to tell your story in this space at this time. SO, there must be some performed element and some mediated element.
• Your artist's statement will require you to reflect on the creation and presentation of your chat, as well as your experience listening to and sharing with other students on the night of the performance.

In class on Thursday, we'll discuss the Exercise in Empathy, and continue our discussion of Belief.

Here's a link to This I Believe, if you're in need of some inspiration for your piece.

Thoughts on the Concerned Citizen

Here are a few admittedly scattered thoughts related to your Concerned Citizen project due Tuesday:

• Remember 1-3 minutes is your time requirement. 
• Post the video/audio doc on your blog with an accompanying artist's statement that (1) addresses your creative process--how and why did you choose to make this thing in the ways that you did, (2) correlates your piece with concepts from class discussion, the reading (Goldbard's article) and media from outside of class.
• A common mistake on this assignment is to overemphasize institutions rather than individuals. Remember that this is not a promotional video for a non-profit or whatever. It is to address an individual's involvement in their community. It should tell a story--one that will probably describe the person's engagement in their community, depict their relationships with others, and give us insight into the personal experiences and motivation behind this engagement.

 And for those of you who enjoyed And A New Earth film we viewed in class, here is a link to HitRECord. The film is on the main page under 'Videos' (along with some other interesting things they've made together).

Another thing having to do with community...

...This one addresses place.

Media & Community

Here's an example to consider...

Everyone Forever Now - "Stoop Sitting" from Everynone on Vimeo.

And another...

And another...

Some inspiration...

...for your Protest Posters

"Cut your shower short" by Michael Beirut

"Walk the walk" by Marina Willer

"Your body is a battleground" by Barbara Kruger

"I shop therefore I am" by Barbara Kruger

"Dough Nation" by Robbie Conal

"Contra Diction" by Robbie Conal

Protest Poster

To begin, here is a TED Talk from Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie talking about the consequences of the uniformity and unity of media in 'The Danger of a Single Story.' Consider this your assigned viewing for the week, and be sure to reference it in your artist's statement next week.

  

 As a reminder, here is the assignment description for the Protest Poster.

Each student will create a poster that utilizes images and text to raise awareness for a particular social issue that he/she feels has been inadequately addressed in the public discourse. Students are encouraged to consider both the aesthetic presentation of their ideas, the information provided, and the political perspective represented.

So, basically you will...

1. Choose a social issue that interests you.
2. Research the representations of this issue in the public sphere (political discourse, media representations, scientific publications, etc.)
3. Create a poster that both demonstrates your (newly informed) perspective on the issue and departs from conventional representations of this issue.
4. Post the poster on your social media site of choice and watch the comments pile up.
5. Incorporate the concepts from class, outside/inside media, your research and creative process, the feedback from your online community, etc. into an artist's statement.

Webspinna & Experimentation

Hey, isn't it cool that we made this?

Also, remember how we also went to the MOA and looked at this...

And this...

Those are cool. In fact all of the Heroes and Monsters exhibit is pretty cool. But we're not just interested in them because they're cool.

 

Someone asked, "So, is this just cross-media inspiration or are we going to make something visual like this?" Good question. At this point, we're not going to experiment with image or video (although, I think it would be awesome to incorporate live glitch-video mash-up mixes into our Webspinna performances in the future). But the Webspinna correlates with our discussion because, while last week we were interested in stripping a medium down to its bones and exploring its fundamental elements (its roots, as it were), this week, we're interested in pushing a medium's boundaries (exploring its branches). 

So for example, digital media--video, image (and I suppose sound, in this over-auto-tuned age of pop music) can be characterized by the opportunity the media provide its authors to hyper-idealize artistic work to seamless, unified perfection. Then, glitches are typically understood as malfunctions, cracks in the veneer. But glitch artists see these imperfections as opportunities to experiment, play, and in doing so, critique the hyper-ideal-ity (I think I just made that word up) of contemporary media.

Or another example, if sculpture is traditionally thought of in terms of physical objects, inhabiting three dimensional space, made of stone or bronze or clay, sitting on pedestals, etc....how might the sound installation we visited in the HFAC be considered sculpture? In what ways does it push 'sculpture's' boundaries and potentially redefine what we understand 'sculpture' to be?

In regards to the Webspinna, we typically use the web for information and communication--mostly through image and text. But what if we use the internet for creation and expression--entirely through sound and music? In media production, we typically write, stage, record, edit, etc. (pre-, production, and post-). But what if our media production is performative--composed but not edited--allowing for improvisation, subject to artist error/technical malfunction, and (like the Lucky Dragons performance we viewed) more reliant on the context--artist and audience, eating, talking, sharing in a dark room with loud music?

So for Thursday--Come with your links to your sounds on your blog, so you can share your Webspinna with another person. You may also choose to come with headphones, so you don't have to share earwax with another person. The workshop will require you to perform your mix at least once before Friday night's event, and it will hopefully provide you with the chance to share cool ideas, resources, techniques, etc. with each other, and thereby enrich your mix.

Further Experimentation

Here is a brief introduction to 'glitch art.'

Watch Glitch Art on PBS. See more from Off Book.

A documentation of one of the Lucky Dragons' 'performances.'

And a translation of a mathematical theorem into interpretive dance (and video).

Webspinna

Here's the assignment description for the Webspinna from the syllabus...

Each student will prepare a 3-4 minute mix of sounds collected from the Internet. Students are to rehearse this mix to become comfortable with their performance and work out any potential technical problems. In place of class, students will meet at an undetermined location at an undetermined (probably night-) time and perform the Webspinna as a collaborative, continuous mix. Students will be asked to bring food, friends and family to enjoy the evening.

And here are my links...

Star Wars Soundboard
Darth Blues 
Dark was the night..

I know how to pray

In B flat

Tapestry

Raindrop melody 

Medium Specificity

Jackson Pollock, "Number 6"

What might Pollock be up to? According to this experiment, how might he define 'painting'?

Andy Warhol, "Eight Elvises"

What might Warhol be up to? According to this experiment, how might he define 'printing'?

Now, regarding medium specificity in music--John Cage's "4'33."

What might Cage be up to? According to this experiment, how might he define 'music'?

As a reminder, here is the assignment description from the syllabus:

Each student will choose an artistic medium (film, photography, drawing, painting, medium, dance, performance, graphic design, poetry, literary narrative, etc.) and produce a work which explores the specific elements unique to that medium--like Brakhage or Daren’s films, Pollock’s paintings, Warhol’s prints, Cage’s music, etc. Students are encouraged to consider how their particular work functions as a celebration, commentary or critique of their chosen medium.

For Thursday, come with 3 media which you might choose to explore in the assignment. We will brainstorm medium specific elements of each media in small groups, and then you can choose what medium to explore, what elements to emphasize and how to make this experiment into an artistic work.

I will evaluate your work with the following in mind:

• Did you choose a medium, identify a fundamental element of that medium, and produce a creative work that both conceptually and artistically engages with that element of the medium?
• Did you provide an artist's statement that explains (1) your decision to explore a certain element of the medium and (2) how your piece creatively engages in that exploration? 
• Did you consider (as mentioned in the assignment description) how your project functions to celebrate, comment on or critique the chosen medium.

Unintelligible Art

"The usual difficulty with the observer of modern art is that he does not inquire patiently and sincerely concerning the 'meaning' of a work of art which strikes him as grotesque, distorted or eccentric (in another word, unintelligible), but, by a sort of symbolic thought-process, recognizes its unrecognizability and thus thwarts any possible further intelligent interest or ultimate enjoyment. It is as if, in a crowd, seeking someone we knew and, looking into each strange face, we should recognize its unrecognizability and pass it by as irrelevant to our quest. This would be a perfectly natural procedure under the circumstances; but in art we are not looking for something we already know; we are looking for a new experience whose value and quality are unknown to us. In such a case to permit unrecognizability to be a barrier is to condemn ourselves to a life of monotony, without the thrills of discovery, insight and 'conversion.'" 

- Edward. F. Rothschild, "The Meaning of Unintelligibility in Modern Art," 1934.

Textual Poaching

L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp's taken Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, drawn a mustache on it and included the caption "L.H.O.O.Q." (which in the French pronunciation resembles a mild sexual innuendo). Now, why would Duchamp do this?

The Grey Album by Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse has taken the Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album and created a series of sample-based songs called the Grey Album. Why would Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) do this?

Concession by obsession_inc

Take a look at it here.

obsession_inc has authored a fan-fiction novel based on the character Christine Everhart (the Vanity Fair journalist Tony Stark has a one night stand with during the first Iron Man film). Why would she do this?

Rebirth of a Nation by DJ Spooky 

Watch a clip from it here.

DJ Spooky has created an audio-visual remix of D.W. Griffith's (in)famous film Birth of a Nation (1915). Why would he do this? 

Sound familiar?

This is King's Row (1942), directed by Sam Wood, music composed by Erich Korngold. Listen to the music in the opening credits...

Manifesto Examples

I mentioned in class that I would provide some examples of manifestos for you to sift through while preparing your own. Notice that underlying each of the following discussions of art is a particular understanding (and usually a critique) of society. Consider this. Why do you value this particular thing in art? Is it undervalued in today's culture? Are there greater--political, social, economic, cultural--factors that would contribute to the undervaluing of what you feel makes great art? If so, address those challenges, and then address how your art might engage with and overcome them.

First, the following is the manifesto from Dogme 95--a group of Danish filmmakers who, dissatisfied with contemporary cinema's reliance on big budgets and technological wizardry (and the inherently bourgeois ideology that informs such productions), forwarded an idea of a purer cinema. Here tis'.

Dogme 95

Dogme 95 is a collection of film directors founded in Copenhagen in spring 1995. 

Dogme 95 has the expressed goal of countering "certain tendencies" in the cinema today.

Dogme 95 is a rescue action! 

In 1960 enough was enough! The movie was dead and called for resurrection. The goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to muck. 

Slogans of individualism and freedom created works for a while, but no changes. The wave was up for grabs, like the directors themselves. The wave was never stronger than the men behind it. The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because the foundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception of art. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby… false! 

To Dogme 95, cinema is not individual! 

Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratization of the cinema. For the first time, anyone can make movies. But the more accessible the medium becomes, the more important the avant-garde. It is no accident that the phrase "avant-garde" has military connotations. Discipline is the answer… we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will be decadent by definition! 

Dogme 95 counters the individual film by the principle of presenting an indisputable set of rules known as The Vow of Chastity [see below]. 

In 1960 enough was enough! The movie had been cosmeticized to death, they said; yet since then the use of cosmetics has exploded. 

The "supreme" task of the decadent film-makers is to fool the audience. Is that what we are so proud of? Is that what the "100 years" have brought us? Illusions via which emotions can be communicated?… By the individual artist's free choice of trickery? 

Predictability (dramaturgy) has become the golden calf around which we dance. Having the characters' inner lives justify the plot is too complicated, and not "high art". As never before, the superficial action and the superficial movie are receiving all the praise. 

The result is barren. An illusion of pathos and an illusion of love. 

To Dogme 95 the movie is not illusion! 

Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind.

Dogme 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules know as The Vow of Chastity.

***

The Vow of Chastity 

I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by Dogme 95:

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.) 
3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
4. The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.) 
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden. 
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur. 
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) 
8. Genre movies are not acceptable. 
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm. 
10. The director must not be credited.

Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. 

Thus I make my Vow of Chastity. 

Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995 

On behalf of Dogme 95 

Lars von Trier         Thomas Vinterberg

So, that's one approach...

Here's another, from the Situationist International--a group of European artists/activists who were dissatisfied with the the opaque, hierarchical, dogmatic, bureaucratic (etc.) nature of contemporary art, and sought to introduce more spontaneity, transparency, activism, radical collectivism (etc.) into art. Pay particular attention to the italicized portion below.

The existing framework cannot subdue the new human force that is increasing day by day alongside the irresistible development of technology and the dissatisfaction of its possible uses in our senseless social life.

Alienation and oppression in this society cannot be distributed amongst a range of variants, but only rejected en bloc with this very society. All real progress has clearly been suspended until the revolutionary solution of the present multiform crisis.

What are the organisational perspectives of life in a society which authentically "reorganises production on the basis of the free and equal association of the producers"? Work would more and more be reduced as an exterior necessity through the automation of production and the socialisation of vital goods, which would finally give complete liberty to the individual. Thus liberated from all economic responsibility, liberated from all the debts and responsibilities from the past and other people, humankind will exude a new surplus value, incalculable in money because it would be impossible to reduce it to the measure of waged work. The guarantee of the liberty of each and of all is in the value of the game, of life freely constructed. The exercise of this ludic recreation is the framework of the only guaranteed equality with non-exploitation of man by man. The liberation of the game, its creative autonomy, supersedes the ancient division between imposed work and passive leisure.

The church has already burnt the so-called witches to repress the primitive ludic tendencies conserved in popular festivities. Under the existing dominant society, which produces the miserable pseudo-games of non-participation, a true artistic activity is necessarily classed as criminality. It is semi-clandestine. It appears in the form of scandal.

So what really is the situation? It's the realisation of a better game, which more exactly is provoked by the human presence. The revolutionary gamesters of all countries can be united in the S.I. to commence the emergence from the prehistory of daily life.

Henceforth, we propose an autonomous organisation of the producers of the new culture, independent of the political and union organisations which currently exist, as we dispute their capacity to organise anything other than the management of that which already exists.

From the moment when this organisation leaves the initial experimental stage for its first public campaign, the most urgent objective we have ascribed to it is the seizure of U.N.E.S.C.O. United at a world level, the bureaucratisation of art and all culture is a new phenomenon which expresses the deep inter- relationship of the social systems co-existing in the world on the basis of eclectic conservation and the reproduction of the past. The riposte of the revolutionary artists to these new conditions must be a new type of action. As the very existence of this managerial concentration of culture, located in a single building, favours a seizure by way of putsch; and as the institution is completely destitute of any sensible usage outside our subversive perspective, we find our seizure of this apparatus justified before our contemporaries. And we will have it. We are resolved to take over U.N.E.S.C.O., even if only for a short time, as we are sure we would quickly carry out work which would prove most significant in the clarification of a long series of demands.

What would be the principle characteristics of the new culture and how would it compare with ancient art?

Against the spectacle, the realised situationist culture introduces total participation.

Against preserved art, it is the organisation of the directly lived moment.

Against particularised art, it will be a global practice with a bearing, each moment, on all the usable elements. Naturally this would tend to collective production which would be without doubt anonymous (at least to the extent where the works are no longer stocked as commodities, this culture will not be dominated by the need to leave traces.) The minimum proposals of these experiences will be a revolution in behaviour and a dynamic unitary urbanism capable of extension to the entire planet, and of being further extensible to all habitable planets.

Against unilateral art, situationist culture will be an art of dialogue, an art of interaction. Today artists - with all culture visible - have become entirely separated from society, just as they are separated from each other by competition. But faced with this impasse of capitalism, art has remained essentially unilateral in response.

This enclosed era of primitivism must be superseded by complete communication.

At a higher stage, everyone will become an artist, i.e., inseparably a producer-consumer of total culture creation, which will help the rapid dissolution of the linear criteria of novelty. Everyone will be a situationist so to speak, with a multidimensional inflation of tendencies, experiences, or radically different "schools" - not successively, but simultaneously.

We will inaugurate what will historically be the last of the crafts. The role of amateur-professional situationist - of anti-specialist - is again a specialisation up to the point of economic and mental abundance, when everyone becomes an "artist," in the sense that the artists have not attained the construction of their own life. However, the last craft of history is so close to the society without a permanent division of labour, that when it appeared amongst the S.I., its status as a craft was generally denied.

To those who don't understand us properly, we say with an irreducible scorn: "The situationists of which you believe yourselves perhaps to be the judges, will one day judge you. We await the turning point which is the inevitable liquidation of the world of privation, in all its forms. Such are our goals, and these will be the future goals of humanity."

And lastly, we have a significantly less philosophically-sophisticated (and definitely less radically revolutionary) Manifesto for the New Sincerity, drafted in 2006 by some dude who has a podcast, but nonetheless is (I think) on to something (as evidenced here, here, and here).

Word came down from America's commentary class around September 13th, 2001. Irony was dead. In what would come to be called "The Post 9-11 World," there would be no room for that particularly distasteful form of discourse. It was to be replaced by soft, sweet sincerity. Somewhere, an eagle shed a single tear.

Of course, reports of irony's death were greatly exaggerated. A few weeks after the tragedy, irony made a heroic, if modest, resurgence. Great exemplars of the form like The Onion and Jon Stewart went back to their grindstones. Hipsters in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn slapped on their Roos and drowned what was left of their trauma in Pabst Blue Ribbon. Within two years, America was watching The Simple Life and basking in contempt.

The great irony of all this is that the pundits and prognosticators who declared irony dead three years ago were absolutely right. Irony is dead. Their account of it's death, however, was greatly flawed. Irony died not in a fiery explosion, but slowly, quietly, of old age.

And it wasn't replaced by a return of the old guard. This time around, there's a new cultural paradigm, itching to get in the ballgame.

This radical new ethos has a name. It's called: The New Sincerity.

What is The New Sincerity? Think of it as irony and sincerity combined like Voltron, to form a new movement of astonishing power. Or think of it as the absence of irony and sincerity, where less is (obviously) more. If those strain the brain, just think of Evel Knievel.

Let's be frank. There's no way to appreciate Evel Knievel literally. Evel is the kind of man who defies even fiction, because the reality is too over the top. Here is a man in a red-white-and-blue leather jumpsuit, driving some kind of rocket car. A man who achieved fame and fortune jumping over things. Here is a real man who feels at home as Spidey on the cover of a comic book. Simply put, Evel Knievel boggles the mind.

But by the same token, he isn't to be taken ironically, either. The fact of the matter is that Evel is, in a word, awesome. His jumpsuit looks great. His stunts were amazing. As he once said of his own life: "I've had every airplane, every ship, every yacht, every racehorse, every diamond, and probably, with the exception of two or three, every woman I wanted in my lifetime. I've lived a better life than any king or prince or president." And as patently ridiculous as those words are, they're pretty much true.

So now, dear reader, you're in on the Next Big Thing. Something more Hedwig than Rocky Horror; more Princess Bride than Last Unicorn; more Bruce Lee than Chuck Norris. Something new, and beautiful. So join us.

Our greeting: a double thumbs-up. Our credo: "Be More Awesome." Our lifestyle: "Maximum Fun." Throw caution to the wind, friend, and live The New Sincerity.

 There are plenty more examples to explore--and these are just written ones. Remember RIP! A Remix Manifesto? Be open to the possibility of your manifesto taking another form or being expressed in different media (that is, IF the concepts you're communicating warrant such an approach).

Movement Manifesto

We didn't have a chance to discuss the upcoming assignment in class today. So to begin, here is the assignment description from the syllabus.

Students will work in groups of 3 - 4 to conceptualize a new artistic movement (or approach or style or genre), write a manifesto that expresses the movement’s objectives/motivations/characteristics, and create art (visual art, poetry, narrative, film, music, etc.) that demonstrate the significance of said movement.The form of the manifesto should compliment its content. The art created can be lots of littler things or one big thing, but it must clearly exemplify the concepts introduced in the manifesto. Students are encouraged to consider what they (collectively) have to offer the world of art and how best to articulate that in a manifesto and realize that in a few works of art.

So, you'll be writing something (a manifesto) that informs your making of something (some piece(s) of art), and then you'll write another thing (the artists' statement) that discusses the process behind your previous writing and making, and their significance.

On Thursday, you'll each be responsible for a 1-2 minute (no longer) presentation in which you use some existing work of art (it may be a poem, a film, a novel, a sculpture, etc. but it should not be your own work) to illustrate some 'aim of art' that will inform your group's Movement Manifesto.

For example, you consider the art that you find to be particularly compelling and find that there is a pattern. Maybe, like me, you find this next thing to be particularly meaningful.

the Scared is scared from Bianca Giaever on Vimeo.

Post that on your blog (you'll share at least a sliver of it on Thursday). Now consider what it is about that thing that makes it significant or compelling. 

• It might be a thematic thing--"Good art demonstrates how imaginative play and creative production help us meet the challenges of life." 
• OR it might be an aesthetic thing--"Good art utilizes foundational, primitive, even childlike aesthetics to represent complicated things as accessibly as possible." 
• OR it might relate to the creative process--"Good art relies upon the sharing of story and feeling between individuals, and the relationships that come out of those interactions."

Of course there are plural definitions of 'good art,' but you'll want to key in on something that you find particularly important. Then, on Thursday, share your piece of art, and then in a paragraph or so (max) share what you think is significant about this piece. (You can write this explanation out and post it on the blog with your art if you'd like, but it's not necessary. As long as you can briefly explain its significance to the class, that's what matters most.) 

Then, we'll have each student vote on the top 5 movements that they'd like to be a part of, we'll divide into groups and get crackin.'

History & Story

Remember that your Historical Stories should be properly formatted. So, if you haven't already found a resource, check this out.

Also, here's this clip of Cornel West clip from Examined Life. Let's consider it (again) in relation to History & Story.

A Process

Just a reminder that Josh will be filling in for me next Tuesday and Thursday while I'm at Sundance. Here's something that screened at the festival a few years ago--Jack White in It Might Get Loud (2009) engaging in a process of human labor. And it's awesome.

Jack White make guitar from GorWo4ek on Vimeo.

Tiny Stories

Here is the assignment description for the Tiny Stories from the syllabus:

Each student will write and illustrate a series of five ‘tiny stories.’ By tiny story, I mean a narrative, (with something that might resemble a begin- ning, a middle and an end) usually less than 30 words, accompanied by an illustration (usually just one, maybe two or three if you’re pushing it). By series, I mean an assemblage of stories that have some underlying, unifying principle (by theme, style, approach, subject-matter, etc.). Students are encouraged to consider how form and content, narrative and theme, individual story and series correlate and compliment each other.

In class today, we looked at a number of different series of tiny(ish) stories and discussed the unifying principle underlying these stories. For example, we imagined what our friend Tim Burton might create in response to this assignment.

You might consider theme, character, style...

We also listened to the following song from They Might Be Giants.

You might consider tone, intent, duration...

Most importantly, this is an exercise in exploring new sources of inspiration for storytelling and creative expression. This is an opportunity for us to develop our abilities to...

• closely read the world around us
• document our observations/experiences/interpretations
• conceptualize our stories
• realize our expressions
• contextualize our creations

So, consider these points during your creative process, and reflect on these points when writing the artist's statements.

Alternative Assignment?

Instead of the Music Mosaic--in which students translate a favorite piece of instrumental music into a series of images--should I ask that students begin the semester by translating their favorite meal into interpretive dance? We could call it the Dinner Dance?

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Beat

Did you notice that there was more than one reference to hip hop music in our discussion today? That's not entirely coincidental--hip hop is cool, and my use of it in class works to remind us of the broad range of creative expression that we can be engaged in here in the Media Arts department. I don't think we currently allow you to pitch a hip hop album as a TMA capstone project (shame), but what might we benefit from exploring such territory? Well, it (often, but not always) provides an example of skillfully produced, technologically innovative, culturally significant and conceptually grounded expressions that challenge conventional approaches to art. Additionally, these new(er) art forms invite experimentation that (perhaps) more traditional approaches don't (often) allow. Like this guy who creates hip hop beats from rock, paper and scissors.

So, keep this in mind as you read, write and make things this semester. Your dreams of producing Transformers 4 are not in vain. But your Transformers 4 might be even awesomer than you imagined if informed by your efforts to explore unconventional, non-linear, non-commercial, non-representational, conceptually- or aesthetically-oriented media arts.

The Power of Story

"Stories are the secret reservoir of our values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves and you change the individuals and nations. Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lives. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings."

- Ben Okri

Music Mosaic

Here's the assignment description for the Music Mosaic (20 pts.):

Each student will create a series of 8 - 12 images that visually complement a piece of instrumental (w/o lyrics) music. Images may be drawn, painted, photographed or created digitally, but must be the creation of the student (not thieved from Google Images). Students are encouraged to consider both form (line, color, composition, etc.) and content (representation, narrative, etc.) in their creations.

Now, let's discuss some potential approaches to this introductory assignment. The dynamic between image and sound can be navigated in a number of ways. We're probably most familiar with the approach that starts with images (or more appropriately, moving images) and then composes music to accompany these images--film scores. Or on the other end of the spectrum, we're familiar with the approach that starts with music and then creates moving images to accompany the music--music videos. I find the approaches in-between most interesting.

For example, the following video started as a fan creation, and then became a collaboration between the composer and visual effects artist. And the composer attributes his relative success largely to the success of the video.

Or, you're probably familiar with the music/design/performance art project that is the Gorillaz. Here, an artist and some musicians have collaborated to simultaneously create these characters that navigate this cool transmedia narrative (oftentimes, in a cool, camouflage dune buggy). Here, neither image nor music has primacy--they're simultaneously produced and thoroughly interdependent.

One is more abstract; the other is more narrative- and character-driven. One attempts to visually represent tone, pitch, rhythm, instrumentation, etc.; the other is interested in using the combination of image and music to build a world. I invite you to do what you think most authentically expresses your reading of the music.

I know that that's kind of vague, and the examples we've used so far are moving (not static) images arranged in time (not space). So I'll attempt to be a little more concrete (as concrete as abstract expressionism can be, I suppose). I recently found a cool Swiss artist named Karina Wisniewska. Here are a few works of hers that I especially like.

Flowering Season, 2011

Field Lights, 2012

She also creates paintings inspired by, and often named for, her favorite pieces of classical music. For  example, here are two works inspired by a composition by Isang Yun.

Colloides Sonores I, 2010

Colloides Sonores II, 2010

And here's another piece inspired by a composition by Debussy.

 Cloches a Travers les Feuilles, 2010

Imagine if Karina was in 112, working on her own Music Mosaic. She might pick a piece from John Cage or Bach (both of whom she especially likes), and create a series of 8-12 images, translating her experience listening to the piece to a visual medium. Remember though, that you will need to justify your particular approach to this assignment in your artist's statement--whatever the medium, form, content, etc. of your mosaic, you'll need to be able to explain their significance.

So, refer to the description of the assignment in the syllabus, our discussions in class, the feedback you got during the workshop. Then get to work. Remember that your completed assignment will include a 300-500 word 'artist's statement' that contextualizes your mosaic within the week's topic--in this case, this delicate process of creative inspiration and execution.

Welcome to 112!

Here's a video to help introduce myself, and our discussion of stories.

Damon from Benjamin Thevenin on Vimeo.